Hunted AIAOY 3

"What?"  Rebecca asked, prompting Harry to repeat himself again.

"I said,"  He let a modicum of tone enter his voice, she wasn't paying attention and it was growing incredibly frustrating.  "Everyone's mixing."

Rebecca had noticed that already, but she didn't tell him so.  The other third year students who had come from her Charms lesson were chatting with one another and sitting with each other in ways that didn't usually happen.

"That's good, I guess."  Rebecca looked over to the door again.  Lunch was passing quickly and there had been no sign more of Fred.  

"We should go."  Ron looked at the time.  "Divination's far and I don't like to run after lunch."

Rebecca feigned hurrying, though she dragged her last few bites out a while longer.  

Harry tried to be patient.  "Ron's right, there's only five minutes left.  We really should go."  

"Divination?"  Hermione scoffed, narrowing her eyes.  "I see...a massive waste of time!"

Harry abandoned his attempt at patience with Rebecca's uncharacteristic, inexplicable-to-him slowness to try and keep Hermione from plummeting.  "I forgot, Hermione.  What was the cause for the twelfth law of transfiguring non organic matter?"

George caught Rebecca's arm and pulled her to her feet, saving her from the confusion Fred's absence had left her in.  "There, there.  Don't worry.  You're teaching probably just traumatised him.  He's bound to have slipped into a trauma-induced coma somewhere."

Rebecca looked up at him smiling.  "Really?  You think so?"  She wasn't surprised that he seemed to sense something was bothering her, he and Fred both had the annoying habit.

George nodded, teasing her ever so casually.  "I know so.  Madam Pomfrey caught me and cured me--How do you think I'm still here, perfect as ever?"

"I have no idea."  Rebecca waved goodbye to him as she fell into the hurrying group of Hermione, Harry, and Ron with her worries about having upset Fred slightly diminished but George's were not.

If anything, his feelings towards Fred were mounting and they were not positive.  Not in the slightest.

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Divination passed without issue and Rebecca was thankful that this was the last Creatures class before break because Hagrid hadn't started any 'dangerous' lessons after Buckbeak.  The class had done nothing but feed lettuce to flobberworms and it was a miserably boring way to spend the afternoon.

Apparently, the flobberworms agreed too because when the four made it to class, Hagrid had a dismal announcement to make.  "Must'a fed them too much--All gone.  We'll be starting something new when we return.  For today, talk amongst yerselves."

There were a few fires lit around the clearing class was held in and Hagrid sat back down on the stump he had been on before they arrived.  He picked back up the wood he had been whittling before and continued working on his hippogriff.

"Professor?"  Rebecca tried, the only one to approach him.  "Hagrid?  Do you want to talk?"

Hagrid shook his head, continuing to whittle.  

Rebecca brushed the snow off the stump closest to him.  "That's alright.  I can talk for the both of us.  I had a big morning, if you didn't know..."  

Hagrid was soon neglecting his carving to listen to her recount of the Charms class.

"But I must have said something wrong.  Fred disappeared before class ended and no one's seen him since."  Rebecca realised in an instant that the part of this that was bothering her the most was the thought that Fred had thought she'd done poorly.  

"Don't even worry about 'im."  Hagrid chuckled.  "I'm sure he'll be at supper."  Hagrid knew the boy would show up at some point or another because he had spent many, many classes hearing either George tease Fred or Fred talk about her.

"You think so?"  Rebecca asked.

Hagrid didn't think that his opinion could matter so much, but he was in such a dark mood most of the time that he hadn't let himself think so.  He made a decision right then that he was going to be a better friend--Especially to those who were putting so much work in Buckbeak's defence.  "I know it."  He noticed how she sat, how she was turning from the wind the best she could.  "Why don't you go sit over by a fire?  Be warmer than o'er here."

Rebecca argued against the idea futilely as Hagrid insisted.  "Oh, alright.  Have a happy Christmas, Hagrid.  I'll get right back to work the second we're back and Harry and Hermione are staying, so they'll be able to work on it a little bit."

Hagrid surprised her with a hug, squeezing her momentarily.  "You are too good to me."

"What are friends for?"  Rebecca asked before going to Harry's side thankfully next to a fire.

"Good chat?"  Harry asked as she held her hands up to the fire.  

"Yes, I think so."  Rebecca looked at him sheepishly.  "But-"

"But you offered Hermione and I up to work on the case over the holiday."

"How did you know?"  Rebecca asked, forgetting to deny her involvement.

"Lip-reading."  Harry smiled deviously.  "It's a talent of mine."

"What if we were having a private conversation?"  Rebecca felt a wave of embarrassment fill her as she wondered if that meant Harry had heard how she and Hagrid had talked about Fred.  Not that there was anything unfriendly about how they were talking, but she also felt that it was a little private.

Harry shrugged.  "Guess it wouldn't be private anymore."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, dropping the subject for the time being.  "I can read lips, too.  Watch."  She gestured to Crabbe and Goyle across the clearing.  "Crabbe's just asked him if he ate their flobberworm."  Rebecca paused, waiting for Goyle to speak.  "Goyle said that not only did he, it was delicious and he'd do it again!"

Harry and Rebecca laughed together, ready to chat the walk back up to the castle away as class was over in mere minutes.  Ron's shouting ended their hopes though.  "Stop bloody lying!"

Hermione's face flushed as most eyes of the class landed on she and Ron.  "I'm not lying, Ronald.  When you pull your head out of your arse, I expect an apology."  She marched out of class just as the bells could be heard.

Rebecca sighed.  "I'll go to her, you stay with Ron.  Better that way since we'll be leaving."

Harry glanced at the scowling Ron.  "Yay."

*******************************************

Finding Hermione turned out to be a more arduous task than Rebecca expected.  The first place she thought to look was the library.

Madam Pince turned on Rebecca as she stepped through the door.  "You!  Did you see anyone in the hall?"

"No?"  Rebecca answered, confused.  The library had stacks of books everywhere--Everywhere, that is, except for on the shelves.

"That monstrous poltergeist rearranged my library!"  Madam Pince shouted.  She would go to a stack, read the title and find it to be in entirely the wrong spot only to slam the book down and shout more.

Rebecca backed out of the library slowly.  No one in their right mind would stay and subject themselves to that.

Hermione wasn't in the courtyard, nor was she in the Great Hall.  Rebecca finally decided that Hermione had to be all the way up in their room and figured at least this way she could put her bag away before dinner.

"Password?"  Sir Cadogan demanded.

Rebecca gave the portrait a stare.  "Have you changed it again?"

"Password, now."

"Round Table."  Rebecca wondered if portraits could be affected by silencing charms as he made her wait, considering her delivery of the word.

"You may find entrance."

Rebecca scoffed, missing the Fat Lady even more.  The Common Room showed no sign of Hermione, which was a bit of a relief because there was a familiar profile seated in one of the seats by the fire.  "You disappeared."

"Oh!"  Fred jumped, grabbing at his chest.  "Merlin!  Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"No."  Rebecca sat across from him, glancing to the stairs she knew she should be climbing to check on Hermione.  "George said I bored you into a coma during Charms."

Fred shook his head emphatically.  "No, of course you didn't!  You did brilliantly, amazingly...I can't come up with another word."  He paused, finding one thing underneath what he was trying to say.  "You were perfect."

Rebecca felt the last worry about how she had done leave her at his words.  Fred wouldn't lie, not to her.  "Did you feel that you did better than last year?  No glasses needed?"

Fred laughed.  Of course she remembered that detail, that he and George's renderings had been so bad Professor Flitwick asked if they needed glasses.  "Far better, thank you!"

Rebecca let their chatter last as long as it could, but then she looked to the stairs again.  "I've got to get up there.  I put it off long enough."

"What now?"  Fred asked, curious.  

Rebecca sighed.  "Ron and Hermione are in a row, something about Scabbers and Crookshanks again."

"Oh, that's why she scooped her cat up from in front of the fire and marched up stairs.  I don't think she even noticed I was here."  Fred stood up and stretched.  

Rebecca wanted to ask why he had been there, why he had disappeared, but she couldn't quite get herself to.  Instead, she tried to make sure he wouldn't disappear the rest of the evening.  "Will I see you at supper?"

Fred shrugged, following her to the foot of the girls' stairs.  "Unless I get a better offer."

Rebecca's jaw dropped and she laughed.  "Is that all I am to you--A backup plan?"  Fred looked up at her and realised that it was like he'd taken a wit-loss potion.  He looked up at her and couldn't come up with a single response.  "It's alright, I'll let you think of a comeback for dinner."

Fred scrambled, trying to cover his momentary absence.  He couldn't really help it though, not when it was the two of them and she would laugh so authentically.  "I will...think."

George scoffed, stepping into the common room and catching the back of Rebecca's head disappear through the door to the girls' dorms.  "'I will think?'  Clearly not, since you are an utter knob."

"Why?"  Fred asked defensively.  "I haven't done anything!"

George grabbed Fred and marched him upstairs, beginning to scold him for disappearing so entirely.  

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"You're not crying, are you?"  Rebecca asked gently, sitting on Hermione's bed.  In their room, Hermione was laying face down with her face turned into Crookshanks' side.

"Crying?"  Hermione lifted her head quickly, not realising that Rebecca had slipped in.  "No!  Why would I be crying?"

Rebecca made a face, wondering if this would be one of those questions you're not truly supposed to answer.  "So you're...laughing?"

Hermione giggled, motioning for Rebecca to climb up her bed and lay her head on Crookshanks like she had been.  Rebecca felt Crookshanks' purring reverberating up through the orange fur, surprisingly loud and strong.  Rebecca laughed too, scooting Crookshanks over so that he was between them and sitting up next to Hermione.

Hermione sighed as Rebecca glanced up at her questioningly.  Hermione was good at this, at Rebecca.  "Ron hasn't seen Scabbers since last night.  That's why he said I was lying, because I said Crookshanks was up here all evening."

Rebecca rolled her eyes.  "He's probably just gone off again."

"That's not how Ron sees it."  Hermione felt a deep sadness fill her.  "I think he'd probably try to pin the weather on Crookshanks and I if he could."

"I wouldn't."  Rebecca stood up and hung her coat in the closet, not planning on leaving the castle's walls again.  "Oh, well by all means."  Rebecca climbed back up onto Hermione's bed and glanced at her rendering from class.  

"Sorry."  Hermione looked up, away from the memory.

"I'm only stirring your cauldron, I don't care of you look."  Rebecca looked down at it and couldn't help a small smile.  The afternoon with Fred and George down at the lake had been a good one.

"It's so good."  Hermione stared at it again.  "Your memories hold so much...detail?  That's not what I mean, but I don't know how to describe it.  How do you get them so alive?"

"I hold onto the happiness."  Rebecca laid her head on Hermione's shoulder.  "I had an idea.  Could I run it by you?"

"Of course."  Hermione put her legs flat and rest her head beside Rebecca's.  

"Professor Flitwick said that he'd like me to try to charm memories onto canvas next, our next project."  Rebecca paused a moment, a little embarrassed to admit this.  "I don't know what to give Molly and Arthur for a Christmas present, I've never really given a grown up anything before.  But, I was thinking, maybe they'd like a rendering."

"Do you have an idea of what?"

Rebecca paused again, longer this time.  "I kind of wanted to do the first time saw the Burrow, before I found them."

Hermione considered thinking over what she wanted to say, and then ignored it.  Sometimes you had to not think.  "You've never talked about where you had been that you found them."

"No, I haven't."  

Hermione waited, feeling the words welling up in her friend like rain did in a puddle.  

"We'll never know exactly how things went down that night."  Rebecca felt strange to be talking about the past.  Not that it was hard or easy, just strange.  "All we know is that Black betrayed Ja-"  Here was where things grew harder.  "Betrayed our parents."

Hermione wondered if this was too much, if her desire to know things had gone too far.

"He betrayed them and Voldemort went and he killed them and couldn't kill us."  Rebecca was certain that if she and Hermione hadn't been lying down together, if there hadn't been another person against her, she never would have been able to talk about the past.  "A woman took me from there, a Muggle.  She and her husband hadn't been able to have kids, you see?  She must have thought it was fate."

"But not Harry?"

"He was found upstairs, Dumbledore said.  I was downstairs."  Rebecca cleared her throat.  "I was with James, Harry was with Lily."

Hermione turned onto her side and held the back of Rebecca's head.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked and-"

"You should know.  Harry should too--I don't-"  Rebecca let herself be held by Hermione and took a moment to collect herself.  "I will tell you, but it's not good and you have to be sure you want to hear it.  That's all."

Hermione leaned back a little and caught Rebecca's eyes.  "I'll hear whatever you want to tell me because I'm your friend.  Nothing's changing that."

Rebecca nodded, lowering her eyes again.  "Janet, the woman, her husband didn't like me.  He'd leave a room if I was in it, pretended he couldn't hear me if I spoke, just acted like I didn't exist.  Janet never did though, we were happy--The two of us."

Hermione noticed how Rebecca trembled and knew that the happiness didn't last.

"When I was six, we were on our way to the park."  Rebecca tried to quell the panic burning in her head.  This wasn't supposed to be talked about, this wasn't supposed to be thought about.  "I was a cheeky bastard, always asking questions.  I asked why we needed seatbelts and undid mine.  She only turned around for a second to belt me in again but there was ice and-"  Rebecca saw the glimpses she did in her occasional dreams about Janet.  "And I killed her."

"That's not killing her."  Hermione said instantly.  "Rebecca, you can't think that.  You mustn't."

Rebecca knew that Hermione spoke, but she was stuck in the distant past and heard without hearing.  "I waited and I waited for her to wake up, but she was gone."  Her tone grew heavier.  "William knew what I did with how the paramedics found us.  I paid for unbuckling that seat belt until I was nearly eleven."

Hermione was afraid to know what exactly Rebecca meant by 'paid' for.

"William moved us back to where he and Janet had lived before and in literally a day everything was different."  Rebecca couldn't talk about how he didn't keep food in the house so she learned how to get into the bins before they were taken.  Rebecca couldn't talk about the fact that the house hardly had power and had no heat.  Rebecca couldn't talk about the cruelties she faced in school and how if she wasn't hurting from William, she was from the bullies.  "But there was another lady here."

Hermione listened in abject horror, rubbing Rebecca's back gently.  She had known that her past was bad, that was so clear if you truly paid attention to her, but there were things Hermione hadn't been able to imagine someone could do to a child, and she knew that this wasn't the whole truth.

Hermione didn't think anyone would ever know the whole truth, not about Rebecca and what she had gone through.

"I know she didn't need my help,  Mrs. Figg" Rebecca's heart hurt.  "Not really.  But she would say she did and then make me stay a while as 'payment.'  She always had food and her house was warm and-"  Rebecca's retelling halted again and she closed her eyes tightly to try and stop the tears that burned to fall.  "And then one day I asked if I could stay.  Mrs. Figg dropped to the floor, grabbing at her chest.  I rang for an ambulance and made sure she got on it, but I couldn't go back after that.  Couldn't make her like Janet."

Rebecca shook her head, wiping at her cheek with her shoulder.  "It didn't matter anyway.  Mrs. Figg never went back to her house in Caterham.  A woman packed up her belongings and her cats and that was it."

"Are you okay?"  Hermione whispered, apologising with her care.  "I'm so sorry, I never would have-"

"That's the worst of it."  Rebecca laid her head on Hermione's arm and found that the lump in her throat was lessening with the loss of those who had loved her past.  "That was all well before the end, years before.  William kept on as usual, drinking more and disappearing for days at a time.  Before summer the year of Hogwarts, on a rare morning he was there, a letter came and he went all white."

"Your Hogwarts letter?"  Hermione asked.

"I'm not sure, I never got it.  It makes the most sense though.  I got home from the school and he wasn't there so I waited.  When he showed up, it was late enough that it was getting dark."  Rebecca found the words coming a little easier now.  "He told me to get into the car and he began to drive.  I don't know how long, but it was pitch black by the time he'd stopped in a field.  The motorway was long gone and it was like we were the only people in the world."

Rebecca felt a flash of embarrassment.  "He said...some things and then he left.  If I went back to Caterham, he'd kill me.  If I stayed there, I'd die."  Rebecca couldn't tell Hermione that William had asked how Janet could ever love her, somethings were too dark to be given the life of repeating.  "I turned around and started to walk."

"And then the Weasleys found you?"

"Oh no, I was serious.  I found them."  Rebecca remembered how hungry she had been, how cold she got at night.  "I found their house after a days of walking and hunkered down in their treehouse for a while longer.  I got caught in the kitchen during a particularly horrid storm.  Slipped in a puddle from my wet clothes and the water I'd dropped, bashed my head, and woke up with Molly next to me."

Hermione smiled, fighting back the dampness she felt desperately wanting to make itself known on her face.  Rebecca was so good, so sweet and kind, and she was this way after dealing with all of that?  It was insane, inexplicable.  And yet, it was Rebecca.

"So," Rebecca cleared her throat.  "That's the idea.  I'd like to make a rendering of the first time I saw the house, the safety and the warmth and just...the possibility of it.  I don't think I would have lived if there hadn't been a house there, you know?"

"I think that's a beautiful idea and I hope I get to see it."  Hermione laid her head on top of Rebecca's again.  "All of that from before...does Harry know?"

"No."  Rebecca wondered if it had been wrong to tell anyone besides him first.  "The others know the basics, the Weasleys.  There was a whole eavesdropping incident, Arthur was furious."

"Thank you for trusting me enough to share."  Hermione wished she could take away Rebecca's past and give her everything she should have had.  

Rebecca sat up quickly, looking almost afraid.  "It's not that I didn't trust you before!  Not at all!  It's just-It's..."  Rebecca tried to sift out what she was trying to say from her thoughts.  "It's not pleasant.  I didn't think anyone would want to hear about it."

"Do you feel better having let it out a little?"  Hermione asked.

"No."  Rebecca and Hermione knew she was lying.

"It's not pleasant, but sometimes things aren't and that's okay."  Hermione held Rebecca close again.  "I am always here to listen if you need to talk.  It's enlightening."

"Enlightening?"

Hermione mused.  "It explains a lot about you."

Rebecca looked up at her, oblivious and curious.  "What do you mean?"

"Well, for instance, he-erm, William, he shouted...right?"  Hermione let Rebecca nod but wouldn't have made her to continue.  "When someone's shouting, like Snape or someone, you sort of draw back into yourself.  You know what I mean?"

Rebecca didn't think it was noticeable.

"There are other things, too-"

"Let's not analyse my whole being."  Rebecca interrupted.  Honestly, she was a little afraid to know how obvious anything else was about her.  The only thing keeping her from a near panic was that Hermione was observant-beyond-others and that maybe that meant no one else saw whatever she did.

Hermione laughed and this made Rebecca laugh, too.  It pushed away the residual darkness of the topics before and led them into the chatter-peppered-with-boisterous-laughter best friends usually fall into and they stayed like that until it was time for supper.

*******************************************

George's scolding had been something else entirely.  Fred knew that Rebecca would notice his absence, but he needed to think and he couldn't do that with her there because he knew if he was around her he was going to want to act like he usually did.

And Fred didn't think he would be able to.  Not after piecing together their time together so flawlessly when before he hadn't been able to do the charm passably.  

Not when all Fred wanted to do was try to do it again with other memories with her.

So that's how Fred ended up loitering around the bottom of the girls' stairs with his thoughts.  The others had long gone down to dinner but he stayed because he couldn't leave Rebecca thinking he'd abandoned his word again, not when George had described how clearly his absence had been noted.

Rebecca's face fell at the sight of him and Fred felt something inside of him fall, too.

"Fred,"  Rebecca was scrambling.  "I thought I told you we'd go over the...homework later?"

Fred was so confused.  What homework?  "Erm--yes.  You did."  Hermione rolled her eyes, though Fred and Rebecca were oblivious to it.  "Yes, I remember now.  Later."

Rebecca nodded walked past him with Hermione.  She thought he would have stepped back, but all he did was turn and their arms brushed against each other.  

Fred, realising too late that now he couldn't continue on his way to supper because then it would seem like he was following Hermione and Rebecca.

But at the same time, he had never quite been happier to sneak off to the kitchens for dinner.  There was a strange, giddy excitement that hadn't left him yet from how Rebecca's hand had grazed his as she and Hermione left.

Rebecca was just thankful Fred had caught on.  Hermione had hardly finished saying how happy she was that she and Rebecca were given reprieve from the boys when they saw him.  Now she'd be out later than she had wanted and she had planned on doing some work for Buckbeak's defense and-

"Where'd you go off to?"  Hermione asked gently, spooning some of her excess dinner over to Rebecca's plate.  Hermione was worried that talking about all that Rebecca had earlier, letting so much out of her that had stayed locked away, might make her feel the need to withdraw herself as she had times before.

"I haven't the foggiest."  Rebecca turned her attention more thoroughly to Hermione, trying to work her mind around what had been said.  "What did he say to you?"

Hermione laughed, shaking her head in awe.  "Ron actually told me that by keeping Crookshanks in our room, I was 'harboring a fugitive!'"

Rebecca laughed with her.  There was just barely the rest of the week before she'd be leaving to go back to the Burrow for her first Christmas, but it felt like it could never be enough time while also feeling like it couldn't go fast enough.

But for now, things were good.  So they chatted on.

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